Privacy Policy and Cookies

Our website, like most websites, uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to improve your experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By using cookies, the website is essentially able to ‘remember’ you during a single visit to the site, known as session cookie or for repeat visits, known as persistent cookies.

Cookies are used for a number of reasons such as making your use of the site faster and easier, storing your preferences, recognising if you have visited the site before or if you have already logged in once, rather than asking you to log in to every page you visit.

Cookies may be set by the website you are visiting (‘first party cookies’) or they may be set by other websites who run content on the page you are viewing (‘third party cookies’).

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that is stored on your browser, the hard drive of your computer or your mobile device if you agree. Each cookie is unique to your web browser.

Browsers tend to accept cookies automatically. However, based on a European E-privacy directive, focusing on protecting the privacy of internet users, website operators are required to obtain consent from website users to use cookies and similar technologies. The UK introduced the amendments on 25 May 2011 through The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011. More information available from ICO here.

The cookies we use are “analytical” cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily. You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them below:

Google Analytics

__utma: This is the main way Google Analytics tracks unique visitors. Stored in this cookie is a unique visitor ID, the date and time of their first visit, the time their current visit started and the total number of visits they have made. The __utma cookie is a persistent cookie that expires in two years. With each new visit, the expiration date is refreshed.

__utmb: This is how Google Analytics decides whether a visit has timed out and also how deep a visit has gotten. It stores the number of page views in the current visit and the start time of the visitor’s current visit. The __utmb cookie is a persistent cookie that expires in 30 minutes. Each page view refreshes it.

__utmc: This is the only session cookie used by Google Analytics. Its only purpose is to register that the visit ended if the browser gets closed.

__utmz: This is the traffic source cookie. It contains all of the traffic source information for the current visit, if it was different from the previous visit. If no traffic source information can be found for the current visit, the cookie is not changed. This is the way that Google Analytics attributes visit information, including conversions and transactions to a traffic source. It does not contain historical information for previous sources. This is a persistent cookie with a catch: it expires in six months and is only refreshed when the traffic source changes. Every other cookie is refreshed with each page view. The impact of this is that a banner ad that brings a visitor to your site will get the credit for all future direct visits for up to six months. After six months, if there have not been visits from any other source, the cookie will expire and start to attribute information to direct visits.

The Google Analytics Cookies are first-party cookies and are essential to using Google Analytics web traffic monitoring service on the site. These cookies are not linked to any identifiable user information that is stored in the website database.

According to an article by the Government Digital Service the use of Analytic Cookies are minimally obtrusive and are essential to the running of any public service website.

Links to other sites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set

If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies, or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that you might lose some features and functionality of our website. If you wish to restrict or block web browser cookies which are set on your device then you can do this through your browser settings; the Help function within your browser should tell you how. Alternatively, www.aboutcookies.orgcontains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of desktop browsers.